Module #3 Reflection

This is the third of what will be several weekly blogs during the course of the class “Technology Assisted Music Learning”. The following paragraphs will reflect on what I learned during Module 3 of the class. I am looking forward being further educated more on technology in music and music education as we progress through the next few weeks of this class!

Soundation (www.Soundation.com) is an affordable music technology program that is a viable alternative to the more expensive program such as Garage Band. I really enjoyed learning about this program. Having some experience with Garage Band in the past, I found this program similar in use and not difficult to pick up. Soundation is a program that I could use with my students in teaching a  composition class.  I am not sure about if I prefer the program over Garage Band yet. I need more experience over time with both programs to see which one I prefer.  Here is my Soundation composition: http://soundation.com/user/michael-lione

Personal Learning Network or PLN, is where a student uses several internet resources and social media to become better educated. For our class, it is designed to help us become more educated not only in technology but music education in general. For this third week of our class, we continued to contribute and grow our PLN. We also continued using several internet resources such as Feedly, Twitter and we continued to contribute to the Digital Musicking Group on Google. During this third week of our class, I am gaining a greater understanding of the PLN and how it works.  This was my contribution to the Digital Musicking Group for week 3: http://www.thecrescendo.com/userfiles/pdfs/pullout.pdf

During this week, we were introduced to www.lynda.com which is a free resource that is open to students in our Masters in Music Education program here at the University of Florida. We searched in the program for “Digital Audio Principals” with David Schroeder which contained several tutorial videos. Some of the videos we watched were Sound and Digital Audio, Digital Audio Workshops, Cables and Connectors and MIDI.  After watching these videos, I feel that I have a better understanding of these topics in Music Technology.

During the week of Module 3, we had some readings from Dr. Bauer’s book “Music Learning Today.” In Chapter 3 on page 64, Dr. Bauer talked about Garage Band which is similar to the Soundation program we worked with for our project. I found it interesting on page 64 when he said, “Yes it is easy to use on a basic level by very young students and by individuals who do not possess a formal musical background.” This ties into what I was reading earlier in the week about the other 80% in our schools. Many students love music and listen to it without always being part of our traditional school groups of band, choir and orchestra. With programs like Soundation and Garage Band, it can open up a whole another group of music students in our school programs!